Ted'sFrankenbike

One thing we like to do is to recycle things, find old parts, pieces and then try and make something out of them if we can. That pretty much sums up this build. We had the remenents of two of these sitting around for years.

1986 Honda ATC250R. Only ours were in no where near that shape. One was just a beat up rolling chassis. THe other we had years ago taken the motor out of it for use in another project. That project went away so we had the motor sitting on the shelf. Good motor, built to race specs with porting closely matching a late '90s CR250. So here was a good motor and two rolling chassis and a pile of parts. Not really into quads/ATC's, though. So my son, Ted decided maybe we could make it into a bike.

So we stripped it down to the bare frame, ditched the complete front end and rear swingarm/axle assembly (see servi-car build thread).

After some measuring and snooping around, we found that a CBR600R F2/3 swing arm would fit with minimal mods. So we had a rear assembly started. Front end was a different story. We happened to have a complete Buell 900 XB front end we had gotten from a friend. That wasn't going to be quite so easy. One thing was that the rake on the ATC chassis was about 15deg!! SO it was off with its neck.

A piece of of 2" -3/16 DOM and a bearing cup/race/bearing kit from a shop that specializes in building & selling chopper kits, and we had a new steering neck.

Preliminary mock-up with the new neck tacked into place.

Ted owns several bikes, but his favorite road bike is his Aprilla Falco. So we set the steering geometry to match that of the Aprilia and welded it in place.

So now with front end in place and the rear assembly in place, it was no longer looking like the ATC it had started out as.

Rear assembly

Tried a couple of tanks we had around and Ted liked the look and lines of an old CB650 tank. Coupled that with a tail piece from a '95 TZ250.

Buell front brake:

As the bike sits there in the picture above, it weighed in at 196lbs. Some advantages to the 250R motor is that it comes with lighting coils, needs no battery, and has a complete usable wiring harness. This ride will be street legal and we are estimating a final weight to be in the 250lb range. THe motor, if memory serves me correct was putting out in the 55hp vicinity when we had it built. So it should definetly be able to get out of its own way

It will have to be inspected by an LEO & SoS. Then it will get titled as an "Assembled Vehicle" and be issued a VIN and title by the state. Not a real simple process, but definetely doable.

Assembled Vehicles

<table height="155" width="680"><tbody><tr> <td colspan="2" valign="top"> Some owners want to know how they can title and register an assembled vehicle. An assembled vehicle is:
</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] 1.[/FONT]</td> <td>[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]One built (assembled) from new or used materials and parts by someone not recognized as a manufacturer (usually an individual). Example: homemade vehicle.[/FONT]</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] 2.[/FONT]</td> <td>[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]One altered or modified to the extent that it no longer reflects its original manufacturer configuration. Example: a Volkswagen made into a dune buggy.[/FONT]</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] 3.[/FONT]</td> <td>[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]One which has had its body replaced with that from another vehicle. Example: pickup truck has its cab replaced.[/FONT]</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] 4.[/FONT]</td> <td>[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]One assembled from a kit (often called "kit cars"), even if a Manufacturers Certifica
te of Origin is provided.

Oh yeah, she's going to be fully street legal when we get her done. Got to be able to go cruise around looking for some 4/'s to smoke. Ted realy likes the front end geometry of that Falco on the road, so we decided to match that.

If you look at that Buell front end, there's an upright section of the lowers opposite the caliper. Had thought about mounting this bad-arse looking long narrow two light headlight off that. However reliable sources tell me that wouldn't pass inspection for state mandated headlight heigth.

Oh well. At least the CBR600 rear brake and that Buell front brake should do a decent job of stopping it and shouldn't have any trouble passing inspection for adequate braking.

Hello Charlie,
tailpiece/seat is too big in my opinion. But tank (especially!) and the rest look great! Scaled down version of this seat would be much better ...
Good work, keep on going!
Kind regards, Bambi

Yeah, the seat looks ok from the back, but does look a bit bulbous from the sides. Some of it is the white + flash makes it loose any of its definition. Will see how it looks after its painted. What is it.....vertical stripes that make you look thinner.....or was it horizontal??

Say, Bambi....I see you are in Germany, correct?? Could have used your help last summer. We restored/rebuilt a 1937 Sachs that we got in about 6 milk crates of parts. Had to hunt all over Germany to find parts and then find someone who was willing to ship them to the US. Ended up taking about 5months, but we did finally get it up and running.

That's right, Charlie!
I have to admit that my knowledge of bikes of this age is limited. I'm born 1957 and my most beloved motorcycles date from the 60s to the late 80s/early 90s. With a strong concentration on elder off-roaders (ISDT-bikes before it turned into ISDE in the early 80s), British bikes (especially scramblers) and early Dakar-racers ...
But I'm curious about every 2-wheeler or hack and I use every possibility to be engaged in motorbikes. Ground-up-knowledge is there and I'm always eager to learn something new. Although my skills often don't line up with my plans by far!
Kind regards, Bambi
PS: How about a pic of that old Sachs?

IN the photos, the tires are barely touching the ground with most allthe weight still on the lift. The rear does drop a couple of inches when the full weight is on it. It is basically being set-up in a supermotard style, so yeah, it well sit a bit tall.

Hello Charlie,
nice bike. Sadly, your old off-roaders don't appear. Fault of my pc? I've got a 1976 175 cc Hercules 7-speeder. Your Boondocker is some kind of it's grandfather.
Shipping to foreign shores seems to be a problem sometimes, I'm starting to inform myself as there are questions about that coming up from time to time since I'm member in adventure-riders-forum ... flea-bay things. Up to this moment no-one won one of the auctions in question. Shipping seems to be difficult with a lot of hooks in it.
Kind regards, Bambi